


Snow Day

by minkmix



Category: Supernatural
Genre: brrrrrrrrr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 09:23:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21425914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minkmix/pseuds/minkmix
Summary: Sam unfortunately gets a day off from school.(its wordy, I am young, I apologize)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 11





	Snow Day

**Author's Note:**

  * For [snow plows](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=snow+plows).

“You know how I always know when it’s gonna snow?”

Sam had taken the quilt off his bed and was using it to cocoon himself off from the steady chill that gushed under the decent inch of space under the door. The heater was working fine but it didn’t stand a chance against every ill fit window, the bad air ventilation and the crumbling insulation in the thin walls.

He lay flat down on his back on the surprisingly soft carpet. It smelled chemical new, the padding under it still spongy before a decades worth of strangers had a chance to pound it down flat and hard as concrete. Considering the looks of the place, Sam suddenly made a small frown, wondering why just exactly the carpet would be replaced and nothing else.

“It’s in the clouds.” His seventeen year old brother explained sagely as he stretched and rolled over onto his stomach with a sigh.

Dean was lying down next to him, the awkward expanse of space between the two large beds and the stretch of kitchen leaving them more room than they usually knew what to do with. Sam figured it was because the buildings strange architecture had left all its corner rooms a little too much slack. But instead of filling in the gap that almost doubled the place’s size, it had been left open. Like some small putting green. Or a place to pitch a tent if that was what you felt like doing. Maybe play some Twister while you were at it.

All the windows were wide open. The blinds were at least. That didn’t happen very often when they had to stop and stay for days on those one level chain lock dives that sat off the exits. Nope, this one had three floors and they were on the top facing the back to some black scramble of teetering woods. Each bright square of glass revealed the glare of the entire early morning sky. No one could see into the room from up here. Not unless they were half way up some tree out in that snow choked forest and even Dad’s paranoia didn’t run that high most of the time.

“It’s how the clouds move.”

Dean had always been fairly accurate when it came to predicting snow. Not because he had some deep seated interest in the metrological but because he lived in anticipation for unexpected days off from school. Whenever that radio announced public and parochial schools were closed due to weather his brother smiled like he’d just won a couple hundred bucks on a scratch off. Sam had quite the opposite sentiment. He’d had more than his fill of sitting and marinating in the never ending series of quiet rooms that made up their home. He looked forward to the sight of a classroom. The knowledge that he could question and be answered. The regulated hours for each subject. The periods of time set for only silence and reading. The books that always seemed to be different from state to state no matter the content. He craved the timetables and structure. The way every kid got the same goofy looking pencils. The sound of the loud grating bell rang that startled him at the exact same time every day.

“Maybe it’ll just rain.” Sam muttered hopefully.

He didn’t get why staying here in this room was such a prize anyway. It wasn’t like that they had all sorts of better stuff to do like some of those other kids had. A steep hill behind their house. Some sleds and some stupid dog that didn’t get that snowballs were something to run away from. Hot chocolate and those little marshmellows. Maybe one of those fires burning in a cozy brick fireplace.

Another dreary day in this room with the scratchy television was not some break from some kind of day to day tedium that couldn’t make the weekends come fast enough. In fact, the thought of spending hours closed up in here with the weird epoxy resin smell of the orange carpet and the mutter of the fuzzy local stations made him swallow hard and grip his blanket closer to his sides.

Sam rolled his head to look at his brother.

Dozing, Dean had folded his arms under his head, forgoing his own bed’s quilt although the churning wisps of low white cloud offered up no warmth whatsoever. If there was any sun out today it was sitting high up above the gentle storm, yellow and quiet, waiting patiently with all that hidden pale sky.

As long as Sam could remember anything, he had been well aware of his brother’s easy assimilation into every scene life presented itself. The good. The bad. The painfully uneventful. There was an easy effortless stride there that Sam had always had difficulty trying to keep up with. He wanted to hate that Dean didn’t get any words from their father when his grades came back all in the red. He wanted to despise it when and if any words came back at all, they came in form of praise. A good shot off the bad rifle. Spotting a nice call on the police scanner. Noticing that low tire on the left rear.

Sam shifted his body among his blankets and the fancy new rug. He knew he was making it a little more rosy than it actually was for his own benefit. Between the two of them, Dean was more likely to get one across the head for leaving the car parked where the cops could get curious. Dean was the one that got more than a few words if the rules of the house got broke or ignored. In fact, when Sam failed it all usually came down on his older brother in the end when it came to the play of repercussions.

But Dean still made it look like a breeze.

Some nights after they’d traveled hours just to find a decent place to sleep, Sam would spend another hour laying in a bed that he had to get used to all over again. Thinking about the town they’d entered and how long they’d be there. Would Dad go looking for that no name dealer up over the border? It could look as shady as it was and their father would still make the trip. Would that County Mountie get wise to the bullshit tags he’d been fed when they got pulled over just across the Minnesota line? Clutching his head like it would stop his mind from the ride it took him on every time he tried to close his eyes. Every time he’d tiredly toss and turn around he’d see the same thing. Hoarding more than his share of blankets and sprawled in a bed that was rapidly getting too small for sharing, there was Dean. Eyes closed, mouth half open and already long past gone.

Sam had always been a little more than jealous of his older brother’s ability to be content just about anywhere. His lack of worry or concern making everything they did less than uncomplicated. It made everything simple.

But the state of muted nonchalance Dean wandered the planet in had at some point ceased to make Sam observe it all in coveted wonder. At some point instead, Sam experienced a shift in perceptual gears. He wasn’t exactly sure when it was, but as he got older Sam started to want to label his brother all kinds of things that seemed to more aptly describe the blissful comfortable state of mind.

Slow. Dense. Dim. Stupid.

He listened to the wind pick up, the cold oozing through the shoddy window seals and mixing with the lukewarm air that filled their room. The dark branches of the trees swayed and dipped as the gray billowed ominously overhead.

But Sam knew his recriminations weren’t fair. It was just that the truth made him feel even more anger that he didn’t want to have. The thing was, that no matter how well Sam faired in the careful oasis of his academic or how much he acknowledged each and every bizarre difference their lives were made to follow, Dean was the one that really got it. He was the one that wasn’t fighting his life uphill with everything he could carry right there on his back. It wasn’t exactly thick headed to not actively resist every moment of your every day that you had to wake up and go back to sleep in whether you wanted to or not. Sam shut his eyes and tried to imagine the kind of peace that would come with that kind of acceptance. With a small lurching feeling he knew somehow that that kind of calm just wasn’t there waiting in his cards. With an even sicker feeling, he realized he didn’t know what was waiting for him at all.

Sighing, Sam looked back up at the curl and twist of the weather, so low that the very tops of the trees of the nearby woods were fading in and out of their fog. It had finally started, just as his brother had promised, large fat flakes of snow drifting down to collect on the dry brittle grass below.

The blurry local news paused in the steady repetition of the same climate advisory they’d been clarifying ever since Sam had woken up. The well dressed meteorologist gave a smile and a wink and told all those kids out there that they’d better be ready to get those gloves on if they want to get started on that snow man. National Weather Service had officially announced a good 23 inches by nightfall for all neighboring counties. No school today and if those plows don’t get up over from Hayesville, we’re maybe looking at no class tomorrow either…

“There’s a pond out there.”

Dean’s voice was soft with leftover sleep. He had rolled over to watch the intricate shape of flakes as they started to collect and delicately collapse on the panes of warm glass. Soundlessly, they began to slide heavy and wet down into a undistinguishable pile of slush.

“Saw it yesterday.”

Sam remembered the thin definition of a trail that lead down towards a foot wide creek on the forest edge. He had wondered where it might have lead.

“It’s about a half a mile back.” Dean grinned as he got to his feet and started pulling on every shirt he owned. “Sucker is frozen solid.”

He thought about the old utility shed they’d seen the night they had arrived, looking through it because someone had been silly enough to lock it with only one little three tumbler padlock. There had been a grease covered lawnmower for the motels warmer summer days, the sharp reek of plastic pool toys and a few other things that Sam hadn’t given much consideration to at the time.

Like a couple of old wooden hockey sticks.

He didn’t remember seeing anything that looked like a puck but that was what good flat rocks were for. Regretfully leaving his comfortable wad of bedding down on the floor, he looked around for his own bag. Digging through the scant collection of thermal and flannel, he started putting on what might keep him reasonably protected for the course of what could be a long day. He was glad he’d just outgrown his last jacket. His new one was pretty decent at keeping you dry.

“Ya know what else I saw?” 

Dean had managed to get on all three wool shirts and button them too. “Right down the street?”

Sam seemed to remember a gas station and a dog groomers. Neither of which warranted the expression of anticipatory glee that his older brother wore while he yanked on his gloves with his teeth.

“A Waffle House.” The delivery of the three magic words was solemn but the joy in Dean’s voice was palpable.

Sam smiled back at the notion that there might be some hot chocolate in their future after all. Even some pancakes even if they were of the doubtful greasy kind. With a small shake of his head, he was once again forced to question how he grew up being so fastidious after having been raised by his particularly undiscerning family.

Pulling an arm through a jacket sleeve, he supposed that maybe some days off the track weren’t always that bad. All the studying. The hours of fitful sleeping. Nights of quiet maintaining. Days of monotonous page turning. Feeling and sliding each piece of a mechanism as it came apart. Going past wondering if you’d feel these things were an extension of yourself. Instead wondering if they had become so solid in your hand that you might not be able to ever put any of it down.

The door opened to a gust and swirl of wet snow. It smelled clean and cold. Chasing away the plastic scent of the floors and the cheap glue used to keep the place together. Pushing back his worries of distant school assignments and whether his father would be back in 24 hours or 48, he stepped outside under the bright stretch of the sky.

It made him breathe a little easier to know he could maybe not only put it all down, he could let right go if he wanted.

At least for one afternoon.


End file.
